Roses and butter, not the bitter you think, the sometimes dessert feel, that good bread and butter can be. The smell of roses not the taste of a rose pedal. On Valentine’s Day; month two of adding more nauance to an amateur du vin palate (look it up).

A tasting from bordeaux to sonoma to burgundy.

In situ.

Atmosphere for short. The world’s worst wine in a fun atmosphere has a better chance of being tasty / memorable than an expensive wine in a formal stuffy environment. That being said, relax, this is going to get fun.

Buttery Chardonnay.

I’m embarrassed those words even came out my mouth.

There are two types of wine tastes that happen as you begin to think of wine differently.

Typically, this is a good wine or this is a bad wine judgement.

In that moment, for that second, if you could just pause the judgement and think, deeply, what are you tasting? Smelling? What memories are coming to the forefront? NOW, go a level deeper, how many profiles of the wine did you experience, feel? Minerality? Where was the wine from? What was the weather like during that vintage? Who is the winemaker? Tannin? Acid? THIS is where wine can be fun, dare I say healthy? Congrats you are not a wine drinker, you are a wine enthusiast ie: amateur du vin.

I’ve been popping bottles. Well over 100 over the course of two months. Of which I’d re-buy three for the sake of being delicious and another five for the nostalgia of time, place and taste (I don’t know if my peers would agree so I keep these separate from my endorsement list). No I never finished a single bottle by myself, and out of 100 only 7 are worthy in mind to buy. What this wine adventure continues to teach me is about people, places and the enology of wine. Yes of course in the end good and bad still is relative to you the wine enthusiast. Some friends dispise a wine I picked, which for me I picked for more than taste. Wines from bandol, seem to not line up to my palate yet I love seeing a bandol wine on a wine list or in a tasting flight. Why? Because it’s from the opening scene of A Good Year, I can’t unfeel that, add to my stubbornness that there has to be a good bandol somewhere lol. Is that wine joke lol?

Expensive? Ya.

The cost of procuring some of the world’s finest wines will undoubtedly bring you to burgundy and Bordeaux. Yet, how lucky are we in USA to have Oregon, Washington, California, New York, Arizona to name a few. Almost every state has wine. The cost of these can be less of a hit to your wallet. My only caution is to know what you are comparing against?

We’ve been drinking a $38 white burgundy reccomended by our local wine merchant (total wine). Then I had $500+ white burgundy at a dinner party. At first I thought this is not as good as the $38. I sat for a moment how is this $500 better, and it dawned on me. What I liked about the $38 was the fullness, absolute richness. Then I asked several wine makers this question:

Is a fruit bomb of a wine basically cheating ?

Answers:

“Ha. Depends. If it’s just super fat with no structure (acid + tannin) it can be.“

“Wouldn’t say it’s cheating by default but can be easy way to let crappy fruit be flashy for novice drinkers (ie just let it get raisiny ripe so the fruit overwhelms everything else).”

“if it’s sweet (Meiomi or silver oak classic examples as they about .3 to .5 % residual sugar) then it’s cheating as sweetness masks flaws”

“lol not necessarily cheating depending on the texture and concentration overall…”

And so I thought more about how I’ve been experiencing wine. I adjusted my approach more: Slowing it down further. Don’t rush to taste, chill it the fuck out.

So is a $500+ actually better than a $38?

Yes, I’d say. While you can find examples of wines that are not, you’d be hard pressed across all aspects of wine to make that argument unless you discovered the wine before the wine became “the next great one.”

Fortunately and unfortunately the wine world is a world, it’s massive in scale and small in highly coveted growing regions down to the parcel. New world wines from Chile to Argentina to areas all over the world. There are great values as New World competes with Old World, as repuation takes decades to realize (sometimes a moment to rewrite *Judgement of Paris 1976) RIP Steven Spurrier.

The raw history of wines 8,000 years in the making ahem Georgia.

Where to start?

Great question.

Slow down. Light a candle.

If the wine you are enjoying is gone before the straight shabbat candle goes out, you are a drinker. If you can make a bottle last, welcome to the world of wine enthusiasts, we’ve been waiting for you Amatuer du vin.

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(This post was written and sent from my iPhone)

Summer of Wine

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